The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop

by Steve Osborne

  Hector obviously led a very busy life doing things he shouldn’t be doing, so he forgot to return to court on the date the judge set. Maybe next time he will buy himself a calendar and jot this stuff down. Unsurprisingly, the judge was annoyed at Hector’s absence and total disregard for the law, so he issued a bench warrant for his arrest. The warrant was immediately processed through channels in the Fugitive Division, and as usual the next morning it found its way to my squad for execution.

  Believe it or not we usually don’t get that much background information on the guys we go after—just the basics. There’s no time to learn every little detail about some perp’s arrest history and what type of individual he or she might be. A defendant doesn’t show up one morning and the next morning we are out looking for them. My squad is like an assembly line for warrants. At the time there were literally tens of thousands of active warrants in the Bronx, and we would normally hit seven or eight every day before we sat down to have lunch. Every morning they come in by the basketful, we execute them, then hopefully bring them back to jail. So we treat them all the same—like bad guys.

  I had heard Hector got into a beef with somebody and there was some gunplay involved. I didn’t know if it was true or not, I never had a chance to verify it, but it really didn’t matter to me one way or the other. Even if you had a bullshit warrant for drug possession, I treated everybody I went after as a dangerous individual. It’s called survival.

  I had six very talented detectives in my squad, and each morning all contributed one or two warrants from their assigned caseloads to the morning pile. Hector was on top because we usually hit them in priority order.

  As I finished my breakfast of champions, my phone rang and a familiar voice from the detectives’ room downstairs said, “Ready when you are, boss.”

  It was time to get to work. I patted myself down, going through my checklist: gun, handcuffs, spare magazine, flashlight, mace, and backup gun tucked in an ankle holster. I threw my Kevlar vest on, grabbed my pile of warrants with the smiling faces, and headed for the stairs with a spring in my step that said, “I love this shit.”

  Downstairs my squad was going through their last-minute checklist also. Newspapers were closed, coffee cups, napkins, and paper bags found their way to the garbage can, and we headed for the door.

  We jumped into three unmarked cars and quickly caravanned over to our first hit. Hector lived in a large apartment complex and I had been here several times before. These were some bad buildings and it seemed every time we came here there was a problem. Whether it was perps fighting with us or somebody throwing bottles or bricks off the roof at us, it was always a pain in the ass. I looked at my watch—5:20 a.m. and the neighborhood was quiet. Maybe this one will go smoothly, I thought to myself. Get in and get out before anyone even knows we were here.

  The lock on the front door had been kicked in so many times, only a slight push was needed to gain entrance. The lobby stunk of urine and the walls were decorated with graffiti and bullet holes. On the floor were empty crack vials and beer bottles. The barely decipherable bubble letters on the wall let us know there were gang members living in the building. The broken mailboxes made me wonder how anybody received their mail, or if they even cared.

  The warrant we were executing was for apartment 4B. A quick look at the first-floor layout revealed all the B apartments faced the front of the building. I motioned for two of my detectives to cover the front of the building while the rest of us “hit” the apartment.

  Four floors sounds pretty high for a guy to jump out of a window trying to escape, but desperate men do desperate things and I’ve had it happen to me before. A perp had scrambled down some cable wires that went from the roof to the ground floor. And if he did jump out the window and kill himself, the family would be on the evening news swearing that we threw him out, in an effort to sue the city for a couple of million. Two detectives covering the front might save us all a lot of grief.

  At the end of the first-floor hallway was a Hispanic male in his fifties dressed in a beige uniform with a mop and a bucket. He was obviously the super. He took one look at us and knew exactly who we were, so there was no need for formal introductions. The uninterested look on his face told me the police were here often and he didn’t really give a rat’s ass about helping us.

  Two of us walked over to him and without saying a word flashed him the mug shot. The look on his face changed from one of disinterest to one of disgust mixed with a little fear. He glanced up and down the empty hall making sure we were alone and just mumbled, “4B.” I mumbled back in my best white-boy Spanish, “Gracias.”

  We took one look at the elevator with the half-open door and decided the stairs were a safer route. The stairwell was littered with more empty forty-ounce bottles of beer, urine, and graffiti. Being the super in this building was obviously a shit job.

  To normal people graffiti looks like some nonsense written by a two-year-old child with a crayon, but to the trained eye it contains a wealth of knowledge. Gang signs decorated one wall, with a list of several nicknames underneath them. These individuals wanted everyone to know that this was their territory. I tapped the third name down, wanting my team to take notice: FLACO.

  I huffed and puffed my way up the four flights of stairs, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, and the stifling sting of piss filling my nostrils. I poked my head through the door leading into the fourth-floor hallway and all seemed quiet. As we tiptoed down the hall looking for the right apartment we passed apartment 4A. I pointed to a cluster of oval dents in the center of the door. The dents were the exact size and shape of the business end of a police battering ram. Obviously Narcotics came by to say hello.

  We found apartment 4B, and without a word of instruction two of us positioned ourselves on each side of the metal door while another got down on all fours to peek underneath. We had done this hundreds of times before, it was almost choreographed. I never had to say a word. Every person on my team knew what had to be done. A few hand gestures from me would suffice.

  We stayed perfectly still for a few moments with our ears to the door. We were listening for voices, dogs, a television, a radio, a baby crying, or footsteps. Anything that might give us a clue to who or what was inside and what we might be walking into.

  Most times things go smooth. An overwhelming display of force does a lot to dissuade a desperate man from trying something stupid. Five cops with guns coming through your front door and two more outside your window will make you think twice. As dangerous as some of these guys are, at the moment of truth most are chickenshit little punks who don’t want to die. A couple of nine millimeters pointed at some guy’s head usually make his survival instinct kick in and he does what you tell him. Most of the time.

  When we hit a warrant we usually don’t knock the door down. Most times it’s not necessary. Besides if we did that for every warrant on every day, half the apartments in the Bronx wouldn’t have front doors. Normally we knock first, and not the loud banging that says the police are coming to get you. We give it a nice easy knock that may say a friend or a relative is at the door.

  I stepped away from the door, turned the volume on my radio down, keyed the mike, and said to the team out front, “You guys in position?” I put the radio to my ear and waited for the response. “Hit it,” they said.

  I turned back to my team and whispered, “Ready?” Four heads nodded back to me in the affirmative. Everybody was in position and ready to get the show started.

  I pulled the mug shot from my pocket and studied the scowling face one last time, committing it to memory. I concentrated on the protruding cheekbones, bent nose, and scar under his right eye.

  In a dimly lit apartment, a brother or cousin of the same age can look similar to your perpetrator and add to the confusion during a struggle. I passed the photo around and let everyone else memorize the face one last time also. Each detective studied the face for a few seconds, then passed the photo down the line.

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p; With firm but friendly pressure we knocked on the door, hoping to lure someone into answering. At this point it’s all just a mind game we’re playing here. If the person inside the apartment knows it’s the police outside, they might just roll over and go back to sleep, hoping we go away. But if we can get them to come to the door and answer, they know that we know they are inside. They then feel obliged to open up.

  We waited and listened, but nothing. Battering rams and sledgehammers were down in the car if necessary. A second knock was given with a little more force to wake up whoever was inside. Not so loud as to announce the police are outside and coming to get you, but loud enough to say someone is at your door and has something very, very important to tell you. Now open up!

  With two of us listening at each side of the door and a third peeking underneath, we waited. Almost a minute passed, then suddenly we heard it, two shuffling feet coming closer. I turned to my team and pointed down to the floor wiggling two of my fingers. That gesture meant I was hearing footsteps. It also meant it was showtime.

  Just then I heard a female voice saying “Who is it?” in broken English. I quietly keyed the mike on the radio and alerted the team outside, “We’ve got movement inside the apartment.”

  The female voice sounded annoyed, cautious, and curious all at the same time. Remember this is the Bronx and you don’t open the door to just anybody who knocks. So she was being just as cautious on her side as we were on our side. I could hear the footsteps inching closer to the door. We knocked again without saying a word. I was trying to draw the voice closer to the door. At the same time one of my guys was shining his flashlight into the peephole. If you look very carefully you can see light on the other side when someone peeks out. Suddenly, very quietly and carefully, someone slid the tiny metal latch on the other side of the peephole open, and again the voice asked, “Who is it? What do you want?”

  An NYPD detective shield was thrust up in front of the peephole, followed by a very loud authoritative voice: “POLICE. OPEN THE DOOR.”

  It had worked. I got the person on the other side to answer. Now if they didn’t open up I would politely explain to them that the door would be flying off the hinges in two more seconds. It hardly ever comes to that. Once the person on the other side realizes we know they’re inside the apartment all the bullshit usually stops.

  The sound of sliding dead bolts and locks clicking open on her side was met with the sound of holsters unsnapping on our side. We turned our flashlights on and got ready.

  The door opened a few inches, and the weathered, tired face of a woman in her fifties peered out. As soon as the door opened I stuck my metal light into the doorjamb to keep the door from being slammed shut on us. Without waiting for an invitation we told her we had a warrant and were coming inside to take a look around. My voice was polite but firm. I wanted her to know she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

  I keyed the mike on the radio and told the team outside we were going in, and to watch the windows.

  The woman spoke in Spanish and broken English and seemed quite perplexed as to why the police were pushing their way into her house so early in the morning. As we politely forced our way into the apartment, flashlight beams danced around the darkened interior like a disco ball at a party.

  I felt bad for the woman as she held her robe closed with one hand and brushed her hair back with the other. In my firm but polite voice again I told her to relax, that everything was okay. We just wanted to talk to her son.

  The apartment seemed clean and well cared for, and she wasn’t cursing at me like a lot of mothers do when I come to take their sons away. She had a red velvet sofa and chairs that were covered in plastic to protect them. She was doing her best to keep the furniture clean in this shit-hole building she lived in. Right away I got the impression she was probably a decent lady who unfortunately had lost her son to the streets.

  I asked her if Hector was at home and told her I had something very important to talk to him about. Suddenly her tone changed. In rapid-fire Spanish and broken English she said he didn’t live here anymore. My tone changed and my first reaction was “Bullshit, don’t lie to me.”

  It may seem like I was being cruel to the woman, but I’ve had sweet little old mothers with rosary beads or a Bible in hand swearing to me they haven’t seen their little Johnnies in months. Meanwhile the prick was jumping out the back window or hiding behind the bedroom door with a butcher knife in his hand. I don’t trust anyone, even sweet little old ladies.

  I motioned to the team to get started. We fanned out through the apartment, checking closets, turning over beds, and searching every space or crevice where a desperate person can try to hide. In a rear bedroom was a teenage girl startled awake by the police looking for her brother—again. We asked her politely but firmly to go out to the living room with her mother while we searched her bedroom.

  The next room to be searched was Hector’s. I tapped the door with my foot, causing it to swing open. With my gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, I stepped inside, shining the light left, right, up, and down—but nothing.

  I was relieved to see the window was locked shut. I didn’t want to have to look outside and see him—SPLAT!—on the sidewalk four floors down. That would have ruined my morning and my plans for getting breakfast in another hour.

  I stepped over to the bed and bent down to touch the sheets. They were cold, no one had slept here recently. A quick check of the closets and still nothing. I looked under the bed just to be sure. You never know what you’re going to find. Drugs, guns, you just never know. I once flipped over a bed looking for a guy and a duck flew out and attacked me. It wasn’t a pit bull, but the quacking and flapping wings were loud and it scared the shit out of me.

  We went back out to the living room to re-interview Mom and the sister, but before I could ask any questions Mom let go with some rat-a-tat-tat Spanish that I did not understand. The sister, realizing I didn’t understand, jumped in to help. “My brother is dead,” she said, pointing to a makeshift shrine on a small table in the corner.

  In the ghetto it is customary to place candles and graffiti at the scene of a crime to create a memorial. At the house the family will usually make a small shrine with candles, a crucifix, paintings of Mary and Jesus, and a picture of the deceased. On this one I noticed the picture of the deceased was missing.

  Because there was no picture and because everybody lies to the police, my reaction was still, bullshit, they’re lying to me. The kid probably fled to Puerto Rico and they’re covering for him. But just to make sure we were all talking about the same person and I had the right apartment, I pulled the mug shot from my jacket pocket. I showed it to Mom and asked, “Is this your son?”

  Immediately Mom began to cry. Tears streamed down her cheeks while she reached out with a trembling hand and tried to caress the photo with her fingertips. Soft sobbing Spanish came from her quivering lips: “Ay, Dios mío, mi hijo, mi hijo,” she muttered. This much I understood. “Oh my God, my son, my son.” The sixteen-year-old sister clung to her mother’s arm and with her head resting on Mom’s shoulder, she also cried at the sight of the picture.

  I immediately lightened up. They were telling the truth. Most people can’t act that good. People lie to me every day to try and protect their sons, brothers, boyfriends, and husbands from going back to jail, but this woman wasn’t lying. I asked her what happened, but all she could give me were some sketchy details about how he was killed a week before.

  The girl hustled over to the refrigerator and retrieved a business card from underneath a magnetic holder and said, “This detective is on the case. He knows everything.” I took a look at the card, handed it to one of my detectives, and said, “Make a call.” I was sure the woman wasn’t lying, but before I closed our case I had to be certain.

  We got lucky. It was 5:45 a.m., and the detective squads don’t start work till 8:00 a.m., but they caught another shooting the night before and were working around the cloc
k.

  It all checked out, Hector was the victim of a homicide a week earlier. I wasn’t in the Homicide Squad, but I figured if it was true that Hector was in some gun-related dispute in the recent past, it might have had something to do with his early demise.

  After talking to the squad and interviewing the mother, I was satisfied that we conducted a thorough investigation, and Hector aka Flaco was dead. Case closed.

  It was time to wrap this thing up, so I stuck my hand out, taking the mother’s hand in mine and gently shaking it, and said, “I’m very sorry for your loss.” I also apologized for waking her up so early but explained it had to be done this way. She was very sweet and understanding, which made me feel even worse for her. This was not the life, or death, she had envisioned for her son when she brought him into this world. But even the best parents can lose a child to the streets when you live in a neighborhood like this.

  I shook the sister’s hand and repeated my condolences, but as I turned to leave, the mother called out to me and pointed to my jacket pocket. She asked if she could see the mug shot one more time. It seemed like a strange request, but I complied. At this point I started to get a little worried. Was she going to tell me that it wasn’t her son? That she made it all up? I didn’t know where this was all going.

  I reached into my pocket and handed her the picture. She reached out and ever so gently took the photo from my fingertips. I watched as she gazed at it lovingly for a few seconds, then closed her eyes and clutched it to her chest like she was hugging the kid. After hugging the photo for what seemed like a long time, she turned to her daughter and said something in Spanish. As I waited for the translation, Mom stared at me with pleading eyes. The daughter relayed the request, saying, “My mother would like to know if she could keep the picture.”